...from the desk of Rande Wayne Smith D.Min., Th.M., M.Div.

The Apostles’ Creed - 3

… IN JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY SON OUR LORD

The Acts 4:12
“Salvation is to be found through (Jesus) alone; in all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us.”

May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion to His glory and our edification.  Amen.

The more famous a person is the more interest or curiosity surrounds them. We want to know our celebrities. We want to know all kinds of things about them, right down to the most mundane and trivial matters. What golf ball does Tiger Woods play? What’s Jennifer Lopez’s favorite vacation spot? Does Barack Obama wear boxers or briefs? We want to know these things. So we have reporters and paparazzi chasing them all over to get the facts about our famous people that our inquiring minds want to know. Now Jesus is a very famous person … always has been, ever since He was born into this world, and so there’s a lot of interest and intrigue that surrounds Him. But there’s one big difference about Jesus when it comes to the curiosity of the crowds … Jesus generally seizes the initiative. He provides the information … and then He waits to see if the public can match the right question to what He has just answered.

He says, “here’s the unusual sermon, here’s the astonishing miracle … now what does it mean? What questions have I just answered?”

It’s kind of like Jeopardy the way Jesus conducted His ministry. And so let’s play a little Jeopardy this morning as we move into the section of The Apostles’ Creed that’s focused on Jesus Christ. Jesus is the core of the Creed, and for the next 5 weeks we’re going to look at the summary answers of His life.

I believe in Jesus Christ … his only Son … our Lord.

Those are the answers … now what are the questions behind them? So, let’s play. Answer … Jesus Christ. Question … (what’s your name?) Who are you? That was the question that was always on the minds of the public whenever Jesus did anything “Messiah-like.” Jesus meets a cripple, happens to be the Sabbath day, He heals him, telling him to stand up and walk. And not only stand up and walk, but take his mat and go home … which breaks the Sabbath law.

He goes to a paralytic laid out flat on his bed. And not only does He raise him up so that he can walk, but He forgives his sins.

Jesus is out in a boat with His disciples, when a storm comes up, threatening to drown them all. Jesus stands up and commands “the wind, ‘Be quiet!’ and he said to the waves, ‘Be still!’” He is doing Messiah-like things, and wow, do the questions begin to fly. “Who is the man who told you to do this?” “Who is this man who speaks such blasphemy?” “Who is this, who even forgives sin?” “Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!”

The answer, Jesus Christ … that’s His name. Well, technically it isn’t. Jesus is His name. Jesus means God saves. Christ is His title. It means anointed one. Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah. He is Jesus, the Christ. We just shorten it to Jesus Christ. And it’s not bad to consider that to be His name because Christ is who He is.

Now there were a lot of messianic hopes in Jesus’ day; a lot of anticipation that very soon God might send the Christ into the world. But even with all the interest there was a lot of misconception about Him. What kind of person would the Christ/Messiah be? What would He do?

There were really only 2 things that everybody could agree on … He would be a King, and He’d be a Deliverer … because that’s what God’s messiahs have always been.

Looking back over Jewish history we have Joseph, who was a ruler and deliverer. He rose up to second in command in Egypt, and he delivered his people from the famine that was in their land. Moses delivered his people out of Egypt, and became the ruler of the Hebrew nation.

All the judges (i.e. Gideon, Samson) delivered God’s people from the Midianites and Philistines, and became rulers. Saul, David, all the Israelite kings delivered the people from their enemies and took the throne. King and Deliverer, if we know nothing else, God’s Messiah is going to fulfill those 2 roles.

That created some problems around Jesus as the Christ. Did He deliver people? Absolutely! He caused crippled people to walk, and paralyzed people to stand up, He calmed wind and waves and delivered His disciples from the storm.

But everybody’s mindset in those days was focused on the Roman oppressors; certainly the Messiah will come and deliver us from them. And here comes Jesus; but He seems much more intent in delivering people from sin than from Caesar. He’s much more interested in reigning in individual lives than over the masses. Could He be the Messiah? Is He the Christ or isn’t He? He seems to be providing a lot of answers to life’s problems … but they’re not exactly the answers that were anticipated. So the people back then, as well as many today, sought other deliverers.

Jesus Christ is our deliverer, our only deliverer. “Salvation is to be found through him alone; in all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us.” There is no one else. All the way from the most obscure cult figure to Mary, the mother of Jesus, herself. There’s no one other than Jesus who can save. He is Jesus Christ … that’s His identity.

Raises the question … what’s your name? If you come to Christ for deliverance from your sin, then you’ve come to the right place. And that means that you can call yourself “Christian” … one who is dedicated to Christ, one who follows Christ.

Jesus Christ is His name, and He’s who we believe in.

Let’s have another answer … God the Father, who has an only Son. The Apostles’ Creed says that we believe in Jesus Christ his only Son. So what’s the question? … (Who’s your Daddy?) Jesus went about proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven/the Kingdom of God was among the people … and boy, did the questions fly.

At one point Jesus is teaching in Nazareth, His hometown, about the Kingdom, and the people are just amazed. “Where did he get such wisdom? … And what about his miracles? Isn’t he the carpenter’s son? Isn’t Mary his mother, and aren’t James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas his brothers? Aren’t all his sisters living here? Where did he get all this?”

“Who’s your Daddy?” That’s what the people were wondering. “We thought we knew. We know your earthly family … but something doesn’t seem right, especially when we look at the things you’re doing and what you’re saying. Who’s your Daddy?” … Well, it’s God the Father, who has an only Son.

No Muslim would ever dream of Muhammad being the only son of Allah. No Jew would ever come up with the strange notion that Moses might be the only son of Yahweh. But no Christian can conceive otherwise. Jesus Christ is God’s only Son. He is the Son of God. We take our stand on this fact. We believe it, and declare it in the Apostles’ Creed.

So, what does it mean? What is Sonship all about? I have a one and only son … Marty. Here’s his picture. Think about his sonship in regards to me. You could do a DNA test and you’d find out that he’s my son, and that he’s male. If you look at him closely you can see some family resemblance. We both have big heads, our family’s uniquely shaped toes, short legs, longer trunks, and we’re both afraid of heights. We share these same afflictions together.

And as we look at Jesus the Son of God His Sonship extends, in certain respects, all the way to His biology. It’s interesting when the angel came to Mary telling her that she was going to be with child, that she was going to carry the Son of God, she immediately asked, “How … can this be?” The response, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and God’s power will rest upon you. For this reason the holy child will be called the Son of God.”

“God’s power” … that’s the same terminology that’s used back in Genesis when God began to create everything. God’s power, God’s spirit, God’s breath, was moving, creating. And the angel declares to Mary that that this very same activity is going to happen within her. “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and God’s power will rest upon you,” and is going to create something very unique inside your womb.

Biologically, this is my only son … and in a certain sense, biologically, Jesus is God’s only Son. But there’s a lot more to sonship than that. There’s also an intimacy that a son has with his father. This guy, right here, is the only man in the whole world, who calls me “Dad.” He’s the only one. There’s a relationship here. There’s intimacy here that I don’t have with any other male child in the whole world.

Jesus demonstrated the uniqueness of the intimacy He had with Almighty God by calling Him Father. Jews up until that day would acknowledge that God was their Father corporately. They’d even dare to pray at times to “our Father.” But Jesus was the first Jew who ever dared to call God “my Father;” and to establish something utterly unique about His own relationship. He went beyond calling God, “my Father.” He used the familiar Aramaic term “abba.” “Abba” literally means “Daddy.” No one had ever dared to say that. But Jesus did. He was the only Son of His Father. The only one who could say those words legitimately. “Abba, Daddy, my dearest Father.”

But there’s something more to sonship. It’s not just biology, and it’s not just intimacy. Sonship, real sonship, is about unity of will and purpose. If you got to know Marty you’d see that we connect on that level … a unity of will and purpose. He talks the way I talk, and does things that I do, and cares about the things that I care about. You’ve heard the expression, “like father like son,” or, “he’s a chip off the old block.” It’s really about behavior … behavior that reveals values and intentions and will and purpose in life.

We need to understand this about Sonship in regards to Jesus. It’s all about unity with His Father in will and purpose. Listen to what John says, “Jesus answered them, ‘I tell you the truth: the Son can do nothing on his own; he does only what he sees his Father doing. What the Father does, the Son also does.’”

That’s Sonship, Scripturally speaking … whatever the Father does, the Son does. The Son doesn’t do anything without the directives of His Father. It’s about obedience to the very will of God.

Let me digress for a moment because there are many cult movements and false religions that use Jesus’ Sonship against Him. They say that because He’s the Son of God He’s somehow less than God. “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,” His begotten Son. So how can He be the eternal Son of God, and co-equal with the Father? This is the error of the Jehovah Witnesses, and Mormons, and others who question the full deity of Jesus Christ, and full equality with the Father.

What does it mean for Jesus to be begotten? It means that He proceeds from the Father, comes from the Father, bearing the very identity of the Father.

We read in Scripture that in Christ the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. When we say that Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father it doesn’t mean that He is a creature created or made by the Father. His body was made, but not His eternal spirit. He’s always been co-equal with God the Father. He’s always been in essence divine.

Back in the early centuries of Christianity people tried to sort this out because there was a heretic named Arius who said that you can’t be begotten and eternal at the same time, so if Jesus is begotten He’s not eternal. And Jehovah Witnesses continue to carry the Arian heresy today.

To be begotten and eternal is not a contradiction of terms.

If we make something it’s always of a different substance than us. Human beings beget humans. Birds beget birds. But we make houses. Birds make nests. And even if we use the words, when it comes to human life, like making babies, we know that it’s sort of a slang way of talking about begetting children. Something coming from us is of the same stuff as us. So Jesus is the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father … we’re saying that He proceeds from the Father and is of the same stuff … He’s divine. “Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son.” People try to use that language against Jesus. If He is firstborn then obviously He’s made, He’s created, He’s not eternal. He was dubbed the Son of God after He came into this world.

Listen to Paul’s response, “He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things.” When Scripture talks about Jesus being firstborn it’s not saying that He was created first among everybody else. It means that He has firstborn rights. If you were first born in your family you were heir of the Father’s estate. Jesus is the firstborn superior to all created things. He’s the heir of all things. God intends to put all things under the feet of Jesus, and let Him reign over all creation.

So, firstborn is not a statement that diminishes Jesus, or describes anything finite about Him. It simply means that He is the heir of it all. “He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things.”

Let me ask you … Who’s your Daddy? Whose essence do you carry? Whose will and purpose do you conform yourself to? The amazing truth of the Gospel is that anyone of us can bow to the will of the Father, we can embrace Jesus Christ His one and only Son, and we too can be called children of God.

“Some, however, did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God’s children. “They did not become God’s children by natural means, that is, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was their Father.”

The new birth that God offers us is the opportunity to be (dare I say?) begotten of the Father, with a new soul, a new spirit, which bears His stamp, His markings. His will and His purpose become our will and our purpose. And we can say, “Like Father like son. What a chip off the old block.” That’s what the Gospel offers to people like us. We’re no longer defined by our human natural descent; we’re known by spiritual realities as God rebirths us after the image of His Son.

A final answer … Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord. The question … (What did Jesus come to be?)

When Jesus, at the end of His ministry, rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, there were loud shouts of praise and worship, “‘Praise to David’s Son! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise be to God!’ … And the whole city was thrown into an uproar. ‘Who is he?’ the people asked.”

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He dismounts the donkey, walks into the Temple, makes a whip, and immediately drives out all moneychangers and their animals, and turns over their tables, and makes a mess of the outer court. And the crowds were amazed. “Do you hear what they are saying?” Who does He think He is? What right does He have to do these things? What’s He doing parading around here like He owns the place?

Well, He does own the place! Jesus came to become our Lord, because that, in fact, is what He rightfully is. He is worthy to ride into the city like a King, and receive the praises of children and adults alike. He’s worthy of going into the Temple … it’s His Temple! He owns it. And if He wants to rearrange the furniture … that’s His prerogative. He’s come to be our Lord.

“Lord” is a most exalted title. Now sometimes in Scripture people are called “lord,” and it simply means, “Sir.” It’s a form of polite address. But no Jew, even in his wildest dreams, would ever apply the term “Lord” as in the O.T. “adonai”, the majestic, imperial, divine Lord to a normal human being.

It would be blasphemy, and a direct violation to the first Commandment. “Worship no god but me.” Jews were uncompromising about that. They were the most fiercely monotheistic people on the planet. They were prepared to die for their religious convictions … and they did.

Historians tell us in the decades preceding the arrival of Jesus more than 150,000 Jews were slain in various uprisings and revolts. Foreign invaders would come in and offend their religious sensitivities. They would put icons up in the Temple. The Jews would go nuts, and be slain left and right. Because no Jew could stand the thought that anybody else would be proclaimed as Lord other than Yahweh God.

And these very same Jews, these fiercely monotheistic people, proclaimed that Jesus Christ, this man in the flesh, was Lord. “Jesus Christ is Lord” … became the first, simplest, and most revolutionary statement of faith ever coined … Jesus is Lord. And Christians by the thousands went to their deaths with that confession on their tongues. Jesus is Lord.

Now in Jesus’ day the Romans were in power. And the way the Romans ruled the people they conquered was by letting them believe and worship and practice whatever religion they wanted, as long as they would make this one confession … “Caesar is lord.”

That’s all they ever asked the people to say, “Caesar is lord.” Say the magic words, and then go and do whatever you want. Just bow a knee to Caesar.

Christians, had they wanted to, could have said, “Caesar is lord” then gone about worshipping Jesus, celebrating the Lord’s Supper, making disciples, asking people to follow the ways of Jesus. They could have done all of that in perfect freedom, if all they would have said, “Caesar is lord.”

And Christians by the thousands stood up in the Coliseum, or before magistrates, before Roman centurions who were prepared to take their lives, and were asked one simple question, “are you ready to confess that Caesar is lord?” And they wouldn’t do it. They said “Christ is Lord, Jesus is Lord.” And they were fed to dogs in the Coliseum. They were tied onto horns of bulls and smashed into walls. They were dipped in pitch and lit on fire to light up Nero’s gardens at night. And the people died for 3 words … Jesus is Lord … they died by the thousands for that one simple confession.

“Others, refusing to accept freedom, died under torture in order to be raised to a better life. Some were mocked and whipped, and others were put in chains and taken off to prison. They were stoned, they were sawed in 2, they were killed by the sword. They went around clothed in skins of sheep or goats – poor, persecuted, and mistreated. The world was not good enough for them!” But Jesus, the Lord, was good enough for them!

He was worthy of the praise and the confession that came from their lips in 3 little words … Jesus is Lord. That’s why He came, to establish His Lordship, and to become the Lord of our lives. Why are you here this morning? I hope you’re here to confess Jesus is Lord.

Our world today is very similar to what it was in N.T. times. Jesus is Lord a direct contradiction to Caesar is lord. It’s a political statement. It’s a personal statement. In some cases it could get you fired. In some cases it will cost you relationships and friendships, and family ties. In some places in the world it could get you killed.

But it will also get you to Heaven … if you’ll make that confession. “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved.”

I want to invite you, if you haven’t taken the Lordship of Christ seriously to bow a knee to Him today. Maybe you’ve been very casual in your Christianity. It’s been a very comfortable thing to come to Church, and to sing beautiful music, to hear some sermons, get a little education. But you haven’t been serious about what it really means to be a follower of Jesus.

Jesus is Lord, He’s my one allegiance. I don’t have a list of priorities and God is one and this is 2 and that’s 3. I have one priority … Jesus is Lord. If you haven’t made Him Lord of your life, how about doing it right now?

MARANA THA